Page 304 (1/2)

The good Roarden, which threatened

theht other places of recreation; while old Count

Appiani sold his garden and the ruins of his villa to the rich stranger

who had offered him so considerable a suarden had assumed a different appearance

Masons, carpenters, and upholsterers had come and so improved the villa,

within and without, that it now made a stately and beautiful appearance

ae of the trees It had been expensively and

splendidly furnished with every thing desirable for a rich h to relate to the listening

Ronificence now displayed in this forladly would the forladly would they now have revisited this

villa, which, with its deserted halls and its ragged and dirty tapestry,

had for at! But their return to it

was now rendered impossible; for on the saarden, he had brought with him more than fifty

workh wall

Higher and higher rose the wall; nobody could see over it, as no

giant was sufficiently tall; no one could climb over it, as the

smoothly-hammered stones of which it was built offered not the least

supporting point The garden with its villa had become a secretof the trees, they saw the

green branches waving in the wind; but of what occurred under those

branches and in those shaded walks they could know nothing At first,

some curious individuals had ventured to knock at the low, narrow door

that forarden They had knocked